and "the wall street journal," obama's cliff offer spurned. i want to bring in joanne reed and molly ball, political reporter for "the atlantic." good to see both of you. good morning. >> good to be here. >> mitch mcconnell, we are told, literally laughed at the white house's offer. and if you listen to speaker boehner, it's not going very well. take a listen. >> i'm disappointed in where we are and disappointed in what's happened over the last couple of weeks. but going over the fiscal cliff is serious business. and i'm here seriously trying to resolve it. and i would hope the white house would get serious as well. >> and the speaker tweeted, "how serious is the white house about avoiding the fiscal cliff?" reports suggest, in some cases, not so serious. and also, joanne, what is the strategy here, and is there a risk like looking like you're not really negotiating? >> well, you know, i think what's interesting is that there's the posture that everyone is taking in public, but then what you're hearing behind the scenes is that everyone's sort